With Mary Cain, Salazar Didn't Want to Repeat His Own Mistakes

Albert Salazar[4] cited mistakes he believes he made that curtailed his own running career when explaining why USA Indoor 1500-meter champion Mary Cain[5] will not compete in the IAAF World Indoor Championship in Poland, in an email to Runner's World Newswire on Tuesday.

Cain said in a statement released by USA Track & Field on Monday: "Unfortunately I will not be able to travel to the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Sopot [Poland]. Over the past week, I developed a discomfort in my lower calf. I had an MRI scan on Saturday and it was all clear, but I still feel the pain when I wear spikes and have decided not to risk making it worse in Poland.”

Cain, who at 17 is now a professional runner though still attending high school, had a spectacular 2013 indoor season and became a world championships 1500-meter finalist outdoors in Moscow in the summer.

She continued her success this winter, setting an American junior record of 4:24.11 in the mile and a world junior 1000-meter record of 2:35.80. Cain also won the Wanamaker Mile at the Millrose Games in New York and then won USA 1500-meters at altitude in Albuquerque.

Salazar, her coach who is a three-time New York City Marathon champ and a 1982 Boston Marathon winner who also set American track records for 5000 and 10,000 meters, told Newswire, “I don't run athletes with sorenesses and [I] teach them to let me know when they're sore. I didn't do that with myself and it ruined my career.” In other words, he's not risking turning Cain's slight setback into a major one. He's indicated he believes she should be able to return to racing by the end of April.

Salazar, known for such extremely aggressive training and competing that he once collapsed after a road race, had his temperature soar to 107 degrees, and was administered the last rites, saw his own running career tail off dramatically after the early 1980s. He did make the 1984 U.S. Olympic team in the marathon, finishing 15th, and came back in 1994 to win the 56-mile Comrades Marathon in South Africa.

Cain, perhaps the most notable teenage American middle distance running talent since Mary Decker more than 30 years ago, could, if her career is well-handled and she avoids “burnout,” remain a world class runner for well over a decade.

Cain’s withdrawal from the championships in Poland puts Heather Kampf of Team USA Minnesota, who finished third at the USA Indoor Championship, on the American team alongside Cain’s Nike Oregon Project teammate Treniere Moser, who’d finished second to Cain in Albuquerque.

Olympic 10,000-meter silver medalist Galen Rupp and Shannon Rowbury, two other athletes coached by Salazar, will be in the men’s and women’s 3000-meter races, respectively, in Poland. Rupp has set American indoor records for two miles (8:07:41) and 5000 meters (13:01.26) this winter.